The Aperture
by M'selle de Paris
Summary: Azelma listens to the scene between Marius and Eponine through a hole in the wall between their homes...my own twist on Azelma. Oneshot.


My first Les Mis fic...how exciting! Hope it's well-received.

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The cold ground was harsh on her bare feet as she stumbled through the layers of snow and ice on the street after her sister. The wind clawed at her face as she ran, stinging her eyes and cheeks, but on she went, because Ponine did.

They rounded a corner, almost bowling over the person who stood there. Éponine rushed on, but Azelma glanced back long enough to see that it was a young man, also staring after them.

"…They near as anything got me," her sister was saying over her shoulder as they hurried along.

Azelma tore her chapped, frozen lips apart. "I saw. I didn't half run for it." She hadn't really seen his face, but he'd been quite handsome, she thought. And his face was familiar.

For a moment Éponine slowed and addressed her sister, glancing back; "Was it a gentleman?"

Azelma started. "I think it was," she replied (nonchalantly, she hoped).

She thought nothing else of it until they arrived home. She took comfort in the warmth of the house, placing herself near the fire, beside the beds. She even took the liberty of drifting off for a good moment or two before she woke to see her sister leaving the garret.

"Where's she gone to?" she questioned as her mother passed by where she sat.

"Next door. Delivering a letter," was the short reply.

Next door?

To a Monsieur Marius, she was told.

Azelma tried to keep a blank expression at this. She and Ponine often saw him about the place, here and there. She doubted he ever saw them in turn. Each time they encountered him her sister would be off jabbering about how much of a gentleman he was, how he was proper, that one; a gentleman all right. He was all her sister ever spoke of to her nowadays, really.

She couldn't deny her curiosity, either, though: she went to the wall she knew divided their garrets, and casually placed herself just beside the little hole near to the ground, that only she knew was there.

The voices were faint, but there all the same:

"I know how to read," Ponine was saying.

Azelma felt a weak jealousy ignite in her. She could read, but only barely…she was nowhere near as good as her sister. No one had had the time to really teach her properly. Now she heard her sister speaking again—oh, she was reading—from one of Monsieur Marius' books, of course. He was a scholar, after all.

"Waterloo! I know about that. It's an old battle. My father was there. My father was in the army…"

Monsieur Marius would be impressed. Éponine would tell stories about their good father, and Monsieur Marius would listen avidly, and if ever Azelma were to meet him, she'd seem dull in comparison with her clever sister.

"No spelling mistakes. You can see for yourself. We've had some schooling, my sister and me…"

She'd told him about her! Azelma wondered if Monsieur Marius would inquire about her, but he remained silent as Ponine's voice carried on speaking.

"Do you know, Monsieur Marius, that you're a very handsome boy?"

The flame inside her grew stronger. Now Ponine was like a perfect lady, exchanging words of compliment with a fine man. Monsieur Marius would have eyes only for her now.

She listened on. Her heart skipped a beat as she heard Monsieur Marius' voice for the first time.

"I think, Mademoiselle, that I have something belonging to you. Allow me to return it."

Such a voice! What had he of Ponine's?

She heard her sister tell of their adventure of that evening: it was the packet of letters! He was the gentleman they'd bumped on the street!

Azelma felt ashamed to have been so careless, running into him like that—they hadn't even paused for apology. What would he think of them?

She listened vaguely to her sister carry on talking to him. What luck her sister had, that she was the eldest and was sent on such errands. The jealousy leapt into her throat now as she wished she'd been the one to go to Monsieur Marius.

But that wasn't only jealousy. She almost ached inside, in a sad kind of way. Perhaps…

Did her sister ache, too? When they occasionally passed Monsieur Marius, and her sister started talking excitedly to her as soon as he was out of earshot, was she feeling that heavy weight?

Azelma wondered for a moment whether her mother or father felt it when they spoke to each other. It didn't seem likely. They called each other 'dear' and 'darling', but it seemed more out of duty than anything else.

The door opened, and Éponine appeared, looking much different than she had before she'd left. Granted, she was carrying five francs with her, but her face still glowed even after she'd given it to Papa. Azelma watched as Éponine sat before the fire as she herself had done before, a serene smile on her face, and noticed her gaze flit occasionally to the wall against which Azelma sat. When she did this, her eyes seemed to light with something Azelma couldn't name, but that she knew all too well from only moments before.

Her sister certainly knew about the ache…

But perhaps it would be best not to tell her about her own.

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PS: This is my own little made-up aperture, because Marius' was high up in the ceiling (he had to stand on the chest of drawers to see through it); and, well, Azelma's even smaller than _him-_ thus, the creation of a new hole in the wall down where she can reach it.

**Review!**


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